


Lessons Learnt

by lasvegas_lights



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25316740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasvegas_lights/pseuds/lasvegas_lights
Summary: There's a lot of learning to do in the beginning, Nile discovers. She barely has time to breathe after the events in London before she’s properly inducted into her new life.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 10
Kudos: 567





	Lessons Learnt

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly obsessed with the movie since seeing it! This hasn't been checked so hope it's okay!

There's a lot of learning to do in the beginning, Nile discovers. She barely has time to breathe after the events in London before she’s properly inducted into her new life.   
  
There are all sorts of rules to ensure they stay off the wrong people's radars. How often they stay in one place, how they contact each other when apart, where they can and can't go. There are hundreds of safe houses across the world that she’s expected to remember the locations of (not safe to mark them on a map of course). It's a lot to take in but being a marine has made her used to structure and rules. She takes them all on board without question.   
  
After the long list of do's and don'ts (which Andy seems to add to whenever she remembers another rule), there are months of training to complete. She knows how to handle a weapon, quickly subdue an opponent and clear a room (thanks to basic training and her stint in Afghanistan) but she still has to learn how to fit into  _ this _ particular team. There's a rhythm, a way of doing things that she needs to find her place in. The last thing she wants to do is upset the balance. Andy, Joe, Nicky, they all take turns in sharing their many many years of knowledge. Different weapons (including a few that she'd never even heard of), fighting styles, languages (one at a time she insists, there’s plenty of time to learn them all), strategy and tactics.   
  
Andy, though now mortal, is the hardest on her during training and Nile often finishes the session with bloody clothes and freshly healed skin. Sometimes it’s like the first time they fought, angry and brutal. She gets in a few sharp jabs and then Andy takes her out with a harsh swipe like she’s nothing but a bug on a windshield. Other times it’s clear her mentor is tired and they focus on refining her movements until muscle memory kicks in.   
  
Nicky is her favourite person to spar with. He keeps her on her toes with slick moves, so light on his feet it’s like he’s dancing around her. He laughs uncontrollably when she falls on her ass, dizzy from trying to keep track of him. Joe always watches from the sidelines and Nile’s sure Nicky is showing off for him.   
  
The training is exhausting and painful but her newly immortal body absorbs it all like it never existed. She still sleeps when she’s tired and eats when she’s hungry because that’s what she’s always done. Just because she could survive dying from sleep deprivation or starvation, doesn’t mean she wants to experience it. There’s a lot to learn about her immortality too and her new companions answer every question she has as best they can. She learns just how little they know about their own healing abilities and that keeps her up at night sometimes.   
  
She loves to hear their stories, memories of wars and celebrations throughout the ages. Some of the memories are still so clear to them, older memories are muddled and filled with holes. Joe and Nicky remember killing each other like it was yesterday but admit to an entire 100 years at the end of the middle ages which is completely blank to them. Some of her favourite stories involve advancements in technology. The first time Nicky drove a car, Joe calling Booker on a phone, their first experience of flying. 

_ "Completely unnatural,” Joe shook his head.   
  
_ _ “You know you said the exact same thing that time I got you on a jet ski,” Nicky teased.  _

_ Joe threw a cushion at his love which was swatted away easily.  _

Nile still couldn’t believe these two soft, sweet men were lethal killing machines. 

Andy’s stories always come with objects. Where her weapons were acquired from, the art she was gifted, the books she inspired. It's harder to get Andy to open up and each memory she revealed was treasured by Nile.  She wants to know everything there is to know about them and she worries that she’s bothering them with all the questions but they never seem to mind. They become an open book to her, sharing everything they can, though she quickly learns that not every memory is a pleasant one and she feels guilty when she finds herself unwittingly causing them pain. But it’s hard not to feel left out when there’s so much history between them. Knowing each other as well as they do can almost appear like they can read each other’s minds. She knows she has a lot of catching up to do.   
  
As well as all the new lessons and knowledge and skills she has learnt over the months since joining the team, there are also things she comes to understand. About herself, about her place in the world. Like the first time she realises there would be a time when only four people on the entire planet would know who she is. Her name long forgotten, her gravestone worn away by time. She had been sympathetic towards Booker before that realisation and the sympathy only grows afterwards. They’re still both tied to this world in a way that the others haven’t been for centuries.   
  
Her second realisation is the hardest. She’s watching Nicky and Joe one evening, Nicky’s head in Joe’s lap as Joe sketches in his notebook. They talk quietly, too quietly for Nile to hear their conversation across the room. Every now and again something Nicky says makes Joe chuckle softly and lean down to press a kiss to his partner’s forehead.  
  
In that moment, Nile suddenly knows that she will never have what they have. She might be lucky to experience temporary moments of happiness but marriage, kids, a white picket fence? It would be impossible. She might never fall in love and she knows no-one will ever get a chance to truly love her in return, not the same way Joe and Nicky love each other. Knowing that is one thing, being reminded of that every day is another. It’s like a suckerpunch to the gut.   
  
Andy somehow knows what she’s thinking and sends the boys away for a bit. They depart without questioning the order, hugging them both goodbye and promising to be back soon with Baklava in hand.   
  
“They don’t make it easy, do they?”   
  
“Hmm?” Nile tries to play dumb.   
  
“Sometimes they forget that we don’t have what they have,” Andy admits. “They’re not doing it on purpose, not rubbing it in our faces...They’re just…” Andy looks for the right words.   
  
Nile gets it. Soulmates is too small a word to describe what they are. She’s not sure if there is a word. What they have is wholly unique.   
  
“It’s actually quite annoying how happy those two are,” Andy huffs. “Just do what I do when it gets too much and send them to another country for a few weeks...or a few years.”  
  
Nile laughs, “I’ll remember that.”  
  
There are many other things she learns once becoming part of the family. How Joe prefers tea over coffee, that Nicky likes to cook (but Joe is better at it) and what TV shows Andy prefers to watch when she can't sleep. She begins to recognise each of their footsteps without looking up, knows exactly how each of them will react to the sound of a car backfiring outside and begins to anticipate their opinions on any given subject. It’s only been months but it already feels like she’s known them all for years.   
  
The biggest lesson she learns is to never walk into Joe and Nicky’s bedroom without knocking first.  
  
She only makes that mistake once.   
  
A sound escapes her lips at the sight in front of her and she quickly backs out of the room, slamming the door as she goes.   
  
Andy smiles against the rim of her coffee cup as Nile enters the kitchen, her eyes wide and her mouth gaping like a fish.   
  
"It's gotta be at least a hundred years or so since _that’s_ happened."   
  
"It's gonna be at least that long before I can look them both in the eyes again," Nile responds, still dazed from what she witnessed. She watches as Andy pours another mug of coffee for her and places it in her hands. With a sympathetic clap on her shoulder, Andy leaves the room. Outside in the hallway. Nile hears their commander shout through the couple's bedroom door. “Get dressed you two, we’ve got a plane to catch!”   
  
The couple makes an appearance ten minutes later, flushed and energised, not a hint of embarrassment on their faces.   
  
“Don’t worry,” Nicky grins at her softly, catching her guilty expression, “It’s practically a right of passage,” he stands beside her at the balcony and looks out at a slowly waking Berlin.   
  
Joe huffs out a laugh, shakes his head and slings an arm over her shoulder, “Welcome to the family.”


End file.
